Cosy curtains, embroidery and celebrity status: Inside the fantasy world of evil Rose West

By TOM RAWSTORNE

Last updated at 08:06 25 January 2008

Had it been anywhere but Bronzefield Prison, there would have been nothing remarkable about the spectacle which took place in late summer last year.

After all, what's unusual about a dowdy fifty-something woman enjoying a Bank Holiday fair, tucking into barbecued chicken and watching a steel band in the sunshine?

But later in the day, having spent £5 worth of "Monopoly money" on fairground games, prisoner GJ0017 then returned to her prison wing, letting herself back into her cell with her own key.

Yesterday, intriguing images emerged in a red top tabloid - taken with a hidden camera - of exactly what that cell contains.

The pictures showed a smiling, overweight Rose West strolling into a cell which boasts a TV, DVD player and stereo.

Curtains hang across the window, while shelves hold books, pictures and cards from well-wishers.

She is also reported to have access to a sewing machine and embroidery kit, and to have the run of Bravo wing at the prison, where she works loading and unloading washing machines in the laundry room.

Such a relatively comfortable existence is clearly far from the kind of style most people imagined Rose West would face when she was jailed for life in 1995.

But 13 years into the jail term which will last until the day she dies, Britain's most prolific female serial killer has settled into a life best described as cosy domesticity behind bars.

Unlike most of the other 450 prisoners at HMP Bronzefield, in Ashford, Middlesex, the 54-year-old convicted murderess has been given several privileges in her cell, including the use of her own kettle.

As one of 35 of the most "well-behaved" prisoners, she also has her own cutlery, curtains, bedspread and a new duvet.

It is all in contrast to the public perception of a woman seared into the national consciousness as a ruthless killer in thrall to her even more murderous husband, Fred West.

Between them they turned their home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, into a true House of Horrors.

Yet those still in contact with her say that, far from showing contrition, she still maintains her innocence and even believes she, too, should be counted a victim - not just of her husband Fred but also of an "evil" Establishment conspiring to keep her locked up for the rest of her life.

She struggles to cope with the knowledge that she will die in prison and has undergone hundreds of hours of therapy to help her deal with it.

Incredibly, for much of her time in prison, West's main prop has been her family.

She has eight surviving children and continues to regard herself as a matriarchal figure.

Despite the terrible abuse she meted out to them, the eldest children kept in touch, even visiting her in jail.

But in 2006, in an apparent act of selfsacrifice, West severed contact with them, saying (in something of an understatement) that she could never be a good parent.

"My innocent children and grandchildren are the ones that must be cared for and protected," she wrote to a friend.

"For them, life will prove to be hard, painful sometimes, and full of pitfalls - for they carry a dreadful inheritance."

She continued: "My role can only be that of someone who can offer only some of the answers to the questions.

"For I believe in the truth - no matter how difficult - it is always better than having to 'exist' in the shadow of others sick fantasies."

Coming from her pen, they are rich words indeed.

When Rosemary West was convicted of ten counts of murder in November 1995, the trial judge Justice Charles Mantell told her: "If attention is paid to what I think, you will never be released."

For once the Home Office listened. To this day she remains one of just 35 British "whole-lifers" who will die behind bars - the only other woman is thought to be former nurse Beverley Allitt.

After nearly ten years in Durham jail, West was moved to the new £200 million all-women Bronzefield Prison at the end of 2005.

"When she arrived, three guards gave her a guided tour of the prison, showing her all the facilities," said one.

"Normally, new inmates are taken into a room and just handed a few leaflets.

"I haven't seen a welcome like that since Princess Anne was shown around the prison before it opened."

Given the avalanche of criticism heaped on the prison authorities following Fred's suicide on New Year's Day 1995, no effort has been spared to ensure the same fate does not befall her.

As well as being closely supervised, she has been encouraged to take an active part in prison life - helping out with cooking classes and looking after the jail's pets.

She also spends hours writing to several people who have struck up a correspondence with her.

"Did I tell you we have a rabbit and a guinea pig here?" she wrote to one, Stephen Potts.

"Quite a big garden, too, which is always a positive! Anyway, we have three more guinea pigs now, they were abandoned.

"They have got so much better since they have been here, they used to be so frightened!!"

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Her correspondence with Mr Potts, a 55-year-old mature student from Oxford, began in 2006 after he contacted her out of the blue having read extensively about her case.

In his first letter he urged West to challenge her conviction, sending her a breakdown of what he thought were the weaknesses in the Crown's case.

Within days he received a four-page letter back, thanking him for his interest and explaining why she was, reluctantly, not prepared to go down that route.

It bears repeating at length.

"There is SO much more to all of this than meets the eye!

"Only once I had actually entered the prison system did I start to learn 'what' it was that was motivating the authorities to act in such an appalling manner.

"When I started to receive the 'paperwork' on which to build a 'defence' and started to read certain pieces of 'evidence', it started to become clear that for those in the position of great power and control there was a lot of stuff that could NEVER become public knowledge.

"Not only were they responsible for the most abominable inadequacy, neglect and incompetence, that in my view would undermine the public's confidence in them, but they were also shown to be corrupt and even evil.

"It certainly made clear for me just why after more than 20 years of asking for the authorities' 'help' with the terrible situation I and my children found ourselves in, not once did they 'respond'.

'We were being systematically used, abused and tortured and they could only find it in their hearts to threaten us!!

"This is nothing new to me - we were treated just the same when myself and my siblings were very young.

"It is my belief that because of this, plus the fact that there is no one else left to stand for these terrible crimes, the 'judicial system' will always have their hearts and minds closed to any appeal from me."

Put simply, Rosemary West believes that she bears little responsibility for the killings at Cromwell Street.

She also clearly believes that she has been made a scapegoat for her husband, and that, had he not hanged himself, the case against her might not have been proved.

Of course, it's not the first time her conviction has been questioned - West pleaded not guilty to murder on the basis that she knew nothing of the terrible crimes committed at her Gloucester home.

But former Detective Superintendent John Bennett, the man who led the investigation into the murders, has long maintained that she is a calculating liar.

"The whole case was about Rose being sexually insatiable," he says.

"There were huge amounts of pornographic material and sex objects in the house. I firmly believe that Rose murdered the girls and Fred disposed of the bodies."

If she wanted to, West could still take the case to a further appeal, but she has chosen not to.

She claims this is a decision based not on an admission of guilt, but on a pragmatic weighing-up of the circumstances.

"Life is too precious to waste on a futile 'cause' despite the undeniable voices from deep down inside ourselves, urging us to make the truth known," she wrote in another letter to Stephen Potts.

"We are learning to live with the frustration and despair, to keep the turmoil at bay - for it's this that will give us life.

"Even when we have to look the Devil in the eye, we count our losses and still we are unable to be heard.

"Ours is a lonely path, the rewards are small, but, I believe, are still worth clinging onto!!"

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Quite what those rewards are is unclear, but clearly West has done her best to behave in jail ("Being a model prisoner is the only thing that has afforded me any kind of dignity over the years").

And while that may afford her certain privileges, it cannot shorten her sentence.

"What I've been wrestling with mainly is trying to come to terms with this natural life sentence!!" she wrote in a letter dated April 10, 2006.

"It has thrown up all kinds of thoughts and feelings, stuff I wasn't even expecting."

A few weeks later she returns to the subject: "Learning to accept my natural life sentence is one thing - living with it is another.

Given that sense of loneliness, one would have imagined that she would have done everything in her power to maintain contact with those members of her family still willing to keep in touch with her.

But ever the control freak, that has not proved to be the case.

In 2006 she was visited on a number of occasions by Anne-Marie, her stepdaughter, the sister of murdered Charmaine.

Many will find this hard to fathom, given that it was Anne-Marie's shocking evidence which helped convict Rose.

She told how she was raped and sexually abused by her father Fred from the age of eight while her stepmother Rosemary "looked on smirking and laughing".

Both later abused her in the cellar of their home.

While visiting Bronzefield in 2006, a prison warder stopped Anne-Marie, who is now 43 and who has in the past herself attempted suicide, and asked her why she came.

She replied: "It's just like visiting someone in hospital."

"Anne-Marie is incredibly compassionate and sees herself as the person who keeps the link alive between Rose and the family," says a source close to the family.

"There are eight surviving siblings and a lot of them have changed their names and are living all around the country, but she wants to retain some kind of contact with Rose on behalf of them.

"Rose is kept informed if she has had a new grandchild or that sort of thing, and that has kept her going for more than ten years in prison."

But while Anne-Marie has bravely come to terms with her past, it seems obvious that West herself has not.

Given that her children are such a crucial link with the outside world, why would she so dramatically have cut off contact with them?

The answer seems to be that she feared she was losing control over some of their number.

In 2006 Mae, who at 34 is the second eldest daughter, wrote to her mother putting a number of "uncomfortable" questions.

In response, she received a letter back saying not to get in touch again.

It stated: "I was NEVER a parent and could never be now. I was hoping and still do that it was a choice you made rather than a feeling of expectation that I could live up to your hopes of having a 'good mother'.

"I have mentioned on several occasions that if you wanted to break contact with me I would understand perfectly.

"I am sorry Mae - I can't be something different now.

"My intention was to make myself available, to allow you children to have someone to come to and maybe get some answers to your unanswered questions.

"As it is I can see that I have only made matters worse.

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"I can only assure you that was genuinely NOT my intention. I truly do not have the skills to be a parent and although I am sad and ashamed of this, it is something that HAS to be accepted."

West also wrote to Potts on the subject. This time, she alluded to her 33-year-old son Stephen, who has also attempted suicide and who was himself briefly jailed in 2004 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

"Well a lot has changed for me recently," she wrote.

"I'm not having contact with my children any more. For two reasons mainly - one because I have simply been in prison too long and two because of my son Stephen.

"He's sick, and because I can no longer be out 'there' he's been able to get certain of the children under complete control."

It's an interesting turn of phrase and offers, perhaps, a chilling glimpse of the real Rose West - still stone-cold and manipulative.

So it is that she has chosen to retreat into prison life.

Her prison job earns her a few pounds a week. But she is happiest of all in her cell, the place she calls her "bubble".

There she'll knit, watch television ("I can't watch anything about serial killers! No matter how make-believe") and listen to music, while curled up under her duvet.

She's particularly fond of music from the Sixties and Seventies and one of her favourite songs is by The Seekers.

The lyrics give a final glimpse into the mind of this monstrous woman: "We'll build a world of our own that no one else can share, all our sorrows we'll leave far behind us there.

"And I know you will find there'll be peace of mind when we live in a world of our own."

Her life now might indeed be peaceful. What a tragedy that her victims, and indeed the children who survived her murder spree, have not been afforded such an opportunity.